The Heroes lost today 6-7 to pizza man Sean Taylor’s (who peed next to Keanu Reeves last night) unit the Blues.  Pardon the Freudian slip…  Our fully loaded lineup, thanks the return of both co-captains as well as picnic-wrecker Phil, was stifled by the Blues pitcher, a Bob Stanley lookalike for all intents and purposes.  Steamer was throwing backspin junk the whole game, and while I can’t speak for the team, I did not see a single pitch on the outside of the plate all afternoon.

Defense was good on both sides.  All scoring was due to nice bat work.  Our 3-run rally in the top of the 5th was quickly answered with 3 runs from the Blues in the bottom, tying the game at 6-6.  They just loaded them up with nobody out and went to work on us.  Good for our defense to limit them to three!  In the bottom of the 6th, Blues led off with a roped line drive homer down the right field line.

The picnic I vaulted through to chase the ball down asked, "Are there any other heavy hitters we need to know about?"  "Everyone!" I answered.  Seriously?  The biggest grassy area of Central Park, and you’re eating in our outfield?  Anything that hits a hamburger is a ground rule double — would be a nice rule!

I don’t think anyone keeps a scorecard on our team. I know Sean does! Anyway, my 2-for-3 contribution was as follows:

Single to right, RBI, run scoredSingle to leftGround out (4-3)

The umpire was the same guy from last week. He has a habit of calling strikes that go over your head. He tried to call a baserunner out who got pegged with the ball when the outfielder was throwing home. This got both teams yelling to him that the runner was safe, as well as bystanders who were casually watching the game! Suddenly, we’re playing kickball??

First softball game today. We won 8-2, short team co-captains. Not bad. Here’s how my at bats went down:

• RBI single
• 2-RBI triple, later scored
• single
• reached on fielder’s choice

Then played a set at Sidewalk Cafe with jazz vocalist Dheepa Chari, Vin Scialla on drums, David Ullmann on guitar, and Victor Hong on bass. Excellent crowd. Went all right for not really a jazz club.

After party at Vin’s old Avenue A apartment. I can’t believe it’s still there! Twelve years. The door still says "LOCK HER" in black tape, only it was peeled so now it just says it in glue. Jammed all night, a lot of I-IV-V stuff, but then we dug into some Steely Dan. Deacon Blues, etc. Awesome.

In order to combat insomnia, I’m ditching caffeine for two weeks retroactive to Wednesday.  I’m not a coffee drinker at all, but this does mean giving up my beloved Peach Oo-la-long tea.  I’m not happy about that.  It’s the most perfect balance of tea and fruity flavor ever devised, with just the right little tad of sweetness.  I think it should win a Nobel Teas Prize.  I think if every person on the planet sipped a bottle of it, war would stop.

I never drink more than one tea a day, though.  This is a practice I had to adopt several years ago in order to prevent caffeine dependency and the associated headaches that would bother me.  Now 1/4 the caffeine of coffee you think wouldn’t be all that much, but apparently it’s enough to affect me.

But now I have to go cold turkey (oh how seasonable!) and let my veins run dry of caffeine for a few weeks.  For the sake of a good night’s sleep, I have to see if this helps.  I’m pretty much on California time right now, despite being in New York.  It’s jet lag at a bargain price.

I slept great on Wednesday night and woke up pretty refreshed.  No problems existing Thursday and got to sleep a little earlier.  Friday, though, got pretty headachey in the evening.  Today, I’m groggy and craving the tea.  Making up for it by drinking lots of water and exercising.

I feel sorry for my friends who have tried to kick the 6+ cups of joe habit.  That’s got to be much worse!